Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Newport News Daily Press
March 14, 2008 The Suffolk-based center issued the report after studying thousands of documents.
By Stephanie Heinatz
Saddam Hussein had connections with "many terrorist movements" before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but the authors of a newly released military study of captured Iraqi documents say they found "no smoking gun (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaida."
The study was commissioned by the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command and conducted by the command's Suffolk-based Joint Center for Operational Analyses and Lessons Learned.
The researchers analyzed hundreds of thousands of captured documents from the late Saddam's Iraqi regime. They said the documents "indicate that the regime's use of terrorism was standard practice, although not always successful."
The study contradicted statements made by President Bush and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
In February 2003, Powell told the United Nations of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and al-Qaida terrorist network."
A year later, Bush was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that "the reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaida (is) because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."
Other administration officials linked Saddam to "various terrorist groups."
"Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States," the report on the study says.
Still, the report says, "The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq."
After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam "supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements."
For instance, Saddam's regime kept records of its connections to Palestinian terrorists.
One captured memo showed "Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank."
Terrorism was an "element of state power," the report says. It became such a "routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training and resourcing of terrorists."
In 1999 and 2000, the report says, Iraq had "development, construction, certification and training for car bombs and suicide vests."
The authors of the report cautioned that though they did review a large number of captured documents, "other documents were not available. ... Those under the control of other U.S. government agencies or others still being processed."
The report is "Iraqi Perspectives Project, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." Nearly two years ago, Joint Forces Command released an unclassified version of its first Iraqi Perspectives Project, called "A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership."
That study was compiled through interviews with former Iraqi officials and captured government documents.
It depicted Saddam as a delusional, paranoid megalomaniac who didn't think that the United States would invade. He was convinced that France, Germany and Russia would prevent the United States from waging war.
He didn't want to fight the United States, according to that first report. He was more concerned about internal threats than American troops, even though the United States was already working to get Iraqi generals to cooperate in the impending invasion.
That first perspectives report was two years in the making and the first of its kind since the fall of the Nazi German regime after World War II.
For a copy of the recent study released this week, visit www.jfcom.mil and send a request to the Public Affairs Office. Command officials will mail anyone a CD loaded with a copy of the study.
March 14, 2008 The Suffolk-based center issued the report after studying thousands of documents.
By Stephanie Heinatz
Saddam Hussein had connections with "many terrorist movements" before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but the authors of a newly released military study of captured Iraqi documents say they found "no smoking gun (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaida."
The study was commissioned by the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command and conducted by the command's Suffolk-based Joint Center for Operational Analyses and Lessons Learned.
The researchers analyzed hundreds of thousands of captured documents from the late Saddam's Iraqi regime. They said the documents "indicate that the regime's use of terrorism was standard practice, although not always successful."
The study contradicted statements made by President Bush and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
In February 2003, Powell told the United Nations of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and al-Qaida terrorist network."
A year later, Bush was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that "the reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaida (is) because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."
Other administration officials linked Saddam to "various terrorist groups."
"Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States," the report on the study says.
Still, the report says, "The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq."
After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam "supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements."
For instance, Saddam's regime kept records of its connections to Palestinian terrorists.
One captured memo showed "Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank."
Terrorism was an "element of state power," the report says. It became such a "routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training and resourcing of terrorists."
In 1999 and 2000, the report says, Iraq had "development, construction, certification and training for car bombs and suicide vests."
The authors of the report cautioned that though they did review a large number of captured documents, "other documents were not available. ... Those under the control of other U.S. government agencies or others still being processed."
The report is "Iraqi Perspectives Project, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." Nearly two years ago, Joint Forces Command released an unclassified version of its first Iraqi Perspectives Project, called "A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership."
That study was compiled through interviews with former Iraqi officials and captured government documents.
It depicted Saddam as a delusional, paranoid megalomaniac who didn't think that the United States would invade. He was convinced that France, Germany and Russia would prevent the United States from waging war.
He didn't want to fight the United States, according to that first report. He was more concerned about internal threats than American troops, even though the United States was already working to get Iraqi generals to cooperate in the impending invasion.
That first perspectives report was two years in the making and the first of its kind since the fall of the Nazi German regime after World War II.
For a copy of the recent study released this week, visit www.jfcom.mil and send a request to the Public Affairs Office. Command officials will mail anyone a CD loaded with a copy of the study.